MARKETING; Cellphone Companies Join Bono's Efforts to Help Africa

By ERIC PFANNER

Published: May 15, 2006

In an expansion of efforts by the singer Bono to raise money to fight disease in Africa, a marketing group that he supports is set to announce on Monday that it has added some participants from the mobile phone industry.

According to people briefed on the announcement, the mobile phone maker Motorola, along with the four major wireless operators in Britain and several phone retailers, will join the group, which is marketed to consumers under the brand name Product Red.

As part of the effort, Motorola will make a special red-colored version of its Slvr cellphone and donate part of the proceeds to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The other participants will also donate part of the proceeds from the sale and use of the Red-branded phone, including a percentage of revenue from customers' calls.

In another new direction for Product Red, The Independent, one of Britain's national newspapers, has said that Bono will serve as guest editor on Tuesday. The paper plans to donate half the revenue from that day's edition to the Global Fund.

''Bono has a unique insight into world affairs, and, as guest editor, will produce a newspaper that, in the best traditions of The Independent, will be challenging, ground-breaking and exciting,'' the editor of The Independent, Simon Kelner, said last week.

The Independent and the mobile phone companies are joining a group that already had some high-profile participants, including American Express, Converse, Gap and Giorgio Armani's Emporio Armani brand.

American Express has created a special co-branded Red card for British consumers; it contributes 1 percent of the transaction value from the card, plus 1.25 percent of any spending in excess of £5,000, or $9,475, a year, to the Global Fund.

Product Red was created by Bono, the lead singer of the group U2, and Bobby Shriver, a nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. Mr. Shriver is chairman of a group called Debt, AIDS, Trade Africa or DATA. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund, declined to provide details of the Monday announcement in London, saying only that ''it's a big deal for us.''

The fund, set up in 2002, has received nearly $9 billion in overall financing commitments through 2008 and has approved the spending of $5.2 billion on disease-fighting projects in more than 130 countries. But it says it is still short of its goals.

Governments have accounted for most of the fund-raising so far, and the Red project is seen as one way to increase corporate involvement.

Participants in the latest expansion of the initiative could not be reached or did not return calls seeking comment.

But people briefed on the plans said all four of Britain's wireless network operators -- T-Mobile, O2, Vodafone and Orange -- planned to participate, alongside a variety of resellers of mobile phone service.

The Red phone will reportedly be sold at Carphone Warehouse, the largest seller of mobile phones in Europe, as well as general retailers like Tesco and outlets run by the network operators.

Photo: U2's Bono in 2005. His fund to fight disease has allocated $5.2 billion in 130 countries and created a brand to entice corporations to help. (Photo by Francois Roy/Canadian Press, via Associated Press )